"As a breastfeeding counsellor, I was taught that one could avert milk leaking by holding the heel of the hand to the breast for at least one minute, and I solemnly absorbed anddisseminated this 'new fact'. In Africa I noticed women unconsciously performing this action just as I might obliviously scratch my ear. In Papua New Guinea there are very few breastfeeding problems because women's knowledge has not been taken away from them, and it is one of the few countries that managed to pre-empt the tragic effects of bottle-feeding by restricting it by law at a stage of development when traditional skill was still thriving. Many infant lives have been saved as a result."